Quote:
Originally Posted by left of center
If Lake Michigan rises to the point that it begins breaching its historic coastline and flooding populated areas, we can always open the locks and have excess water flow down the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico in order to help regulate lake levels.
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would the volume of water that's able to flow through a fully opened chicago river lock actually be enough to substantively move the needle on a body of water the size of lake huron-michigan? i don't think so.
i mean, at 45,000 sq. miles, it's by far
THE largest freshwater lake on the planet in terms of surface area. to lower it by even just 1' you're talking about removing
~9.4 TRILLION gallons of water!!!
and the chicago river lock is like 80' wide and 20' deep, so 1,600 sq. feet. you'd need a flow rate of about
300,000 gallons/second (for an entire year mind you) through those 1,600 sq. feet to lower the lake by 1 foot, which seems impossible to me.
to put that into perspective, the flow rate of niagara falls is usually around 600,000 gallons/second, give or take for seasonal adjustments. and that's freaking niagara falls, an utterly gigantic waterfall, one of the largest on the planet.